


Making Amends

by Fossarian



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Period-Typical Sexism, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 00:50:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16964628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fossarian/pseuds/Fossarian
Summary: Elsa makes a surprise visit to Hans' prison.





	Making Amends

Traitor he might be and prisoner he is, but Hans is still a prince of the Southern Isles. Despite his recent endeavors to overtake a foreign throne, he’s not exactly in shackles on a wet floor. 

He’s not free either, but Hans has been through worse for much less. His brothers used to beat the shit out of him. He still has teeth missing. They thought it was funny. 

Hans stares out the window. He tries not to think of his brothers. He had preferred getting hit. It was better than being ignored. 

The rest of his family doesn’t like him. 

They have no doubt heard by now of his attempts at usurping an allied sovereign’s throne. They might demand his release, as a matter of course, but they won’t insist upon it too strenuously. 

Anyway, the food is decent. He is allowed to read and walk the terraces. No one’s done much to make his life too difficult. He’s mostly just bored. 

So, when Queen Elsa graces his doorway one evening, he’s not entirely unwelcome to it.

“The Queen,” the guard announces with all the pompous enthusiasm he can muster. Poor man’s probably never had so much excitement in his life. “On your feet!” he shouts. 

Hans isn’t trying to be belligerent, he’s just surprised. He prides himself on usually being ten steps ahead of everyone else. 

Not being sufficiently spry enough for the guard, the man grabs Hans by the arm and jerks him to his feet. Elsa waves him back. 

“It is all right,” she says in a quiet, steady voice. “Prince Hans has made his opinion of me clear enough. No need for formalities.” 

“I’ll be just on the other side of the door, ma’am,” the guard says with a spittle glare at Hans. 

“Thank you,” she says, her eyes on Hans. 

Christ. Hans can barely suppress the urge to roll his eyes. Stupid girl. Stupid fucking idiot girl. And she is, oh she is. And he still lost. 

Elsa doesn’t react until the door is shut and they are alone. Hans laces his fingers behind his back, trying not to look too unsettled by her presence. His heart makes a funny jerk in his chest. Maybe she’s come to finish him off. He can’t decide if he’s upset about that or not. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

Elsa’s small, gloved hands are folded in front of her. She dresses like a nun, all black. It adds ten years to her age, and that rigid braid is doing her no favors. Hans smiles at her, his bland, courtier’s smile. 

“I wanted to speak with you,” Elsa says. She sounds as if she has rehearsed this many times. He can almost see the script she wrote out and practiced before coming here. “I wanted to understand you better, to know why you did what you did.” 

Hans’ first instinct is to call the Queen of Arendelle a silly bitch and a fool, but prison has improved his restraint considerably in the last few weeks. 

“Well,” he says. “Why do you suppose I did it?” He could have been talking to a child. What on earth was the point in her exposing herself to this atmosphere? So she could go back and feel herself justified in his punishment? Nobody misses him. 

“I think you did it because you wanted - want - power. And perhaps you think you deserve to be a king.” 

There’s a faint defiant edge to the last word, the idea preposterous. Elsa’s large blue eyes fix on him, looking for confirmation. Hans shrugs. 

“That’s all you want to know?” His smile almost slips, a sudden surge of adrenaline sending lightning streaks of restless energy through him. What he wants… as if she could possibly have any idea... What he wants it to just drop it, the smile, the act, all of it- to tell her to fuck off and leave him in peace. 

But he can’t and he won’t. He’s never told anyone how he really feels about anything and he’s not going to start now. 

“I just saw an opportunity and I took it,” he says, shrugging a little. “Just like anyone else would.” 

There is no change in Elsa’s expression except a delicate wrinkling of her brow. “This all matters to you very little, doesn’t it?” she says in slow realization. “You are not remorseful at all.” 

Something in him snaps. Maybe it’s her face, the way she looks at him as if he’s some kind of monster. Her surprise, at his perceived evil. She can’t be a queen. She’s too… too _innocent_ to see people as they really are. She’ll get eaten alive before the year is out. 

Since death seems like the only logical conclusion to this adventure, he might as well expedite the process. 

“Do you want to know the truth, Elsa Arendelle?” He squeezes his fingers together behind his back, but he can’t stop the words. For the first time in his life he can’t control anything. 

“No, I’m not sorry I tried to take your throne. I’m not sorry I almost succeeded and I am definitely not sorry that your sister was a means to that end. In my country, women and witches don’t rule.” 

He sits down at his little desk and opens the drawer, his hands shaking, and pulls out a tin of rolled tobacco. “Now if that is all, madam, I’ll get back to counting down the hours.” 

He’s going to throw up. 

A few seconds tick by. He doesn’t get sick and he doesn’t die, both of which he’d been fairly certain of happening after his little outburst. He fumbles in the drawer for a match. Lights it, fails. 

Damn witch couldn’t even get a useful power from the Devil like fire. 

For a long moment there is nothing but silence and a chilly frost that he can’t even blame on her _(he’s living in a dungeon, the draft kind of comes with the real estate)_ and then Hans hears the rustling of skirts behind him. He turns and Elsa is standing over him. 

God, she’s beautiful. Winter is a woman. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she says. “Are you worried?” She sits down on the bench beside him and plucks the match from his fingers. Lights it and, cupping the flame, holds it out to him. 

“No,” Hans lies and doesn’t care that it sounds like a lie. He leans forward so she can light his cigarette. The acrid smoke fills his cell. “What are you here for then?”

If any other woman were in his private quarters unchaperoned he wouldn’t even be asking that. 

Elsa shifts forward, enhancing their proximity in a way that makes Hans go very still. He doesn’t want to touch her. He doesn’t want her touching him. 

She doesn’t seem to find their closeness strange. She licks her lips, fidgets in her seat and shifts around so that her skirts are arranged beneath her thighs better. He wonders if she ever gets cold. 

After a moment of more of her stalling, she gets it out. “I - I want to know if you would like to stay here. In Arendelle. Permanently.” 

“Alive?” 

Elsa smiles without humor. “Yes.” 

Hans blows out a breath of smoke. “Why? What do you want me to do? You have an angle, that's obvious, and you’re not good at this game. So just tell me.” 

Hans grew up in the most viperous and treacherous court this side of the Sea. The first rule to survival is that you never act like anyone has anything you want. Elsa has been raised away from the intrigues of court. She trusts too much, wants to be liked too much. Even now, Hans senses it. Like she wants him to accept her. 

She twists her fingers together when she’s nervous. He noticed that when he was courting her sister. 

“What if you could still have your freedom?” 

“But I can’t,” Hans says. 

Thank God he’s allowed to smoke in here. It hides his anxiety. His thoughts start splintering off in a thousand different directions, trying to figure out where the trick is. He spins the cigarette between his fingers. 

“I could make it so. I am a sovereign queen.” 

“Uh huh.” 

“I have given this careful consideration,” Elsa goes on with an intensity that’s starting to unnerve Hans, her eyes never wavering from his. “Despite the Council’s wishes, I… I wish it.” This last part she almost whispers. 

_So what?_ Unlike Elsa, Hans does not hold “The Council” in so high esteem. Bunch of old men with nothing left to do but yell at young people and wait to die. 

“What do you really want?” Hans says. “If I’m free I can’t just leave, right?” 

“Well, no.” 

Elsa does another shift in her seat. With her black, rustling folds, she reminds Hans of a crow. She takes a heavy breath and his eyes dip down momentarily, then back up to her face. He does not usually sit this close to royalty, or so casually. Certainly he never did so with his mother, the Queen. 

“Y - you would stay here”- again with the hand wringing- “and be my councilor. You would be on the Council.” He can actually hear the capitals in her tone when she says “The Council,” like their decrees were as good as God’s in her book. 

"But you would answer directly to me." She says this a little firmer, a little more sure of herself. 

Hans summed up the odds. But, she must have some doubts about their ability to give advice, if she was doing this above their heads? Hans puffed on his cigarette. 

“So what do you want me for? What’s my job?” 

Elsa plucks at an unraveling thread on her glove. She probably goes through quite a few of those. Her eyes finally break with his, dipping to the floor. “You would act as a sort of… spy, I suppose? A sort of unscrupulous man. To give me the truth about things.” 

“An unscrupulous man, huh?” He really does smile at that. She is frighteningly, charmingly naive. God, it would seem she does need one of those. If that’s the worst she can think to call him. 

“So you’ll do it?” 

He grinds out the last of the cigarette on his desk. It’s habit, to not give away an answer, any answer, for free. 

There’s more to it. He knows there’s more. Maybe even more than Elsa even knows. She is just reacting to the threats around her - threats her powers can’t protect her from - and some self-preservation instinct is telling her she needs someone who can do things a gentleman can’t. Someone, naturally, like Hans.

“Well,” he says. If he looks up, he can see the night sky outside his window. One prison is as good as any other. 

He jumps at the touch of Elsa’s hand on his knee. She’s still gloved, so all he feels is the weight. 

“Please,” she says. “You have certain… skills I don’t possess. We can help each other.” 

Hans wishes she’d quit touching him. He keeps looking out the window. “That is true,” he says slowly. But he has already made his mind up, the rest is just a formality. He lets another minute go, fighting against his natural inclination to just give in and do what she wants. Whenever she moves a certain way he catches a scent of her perfume. It reminds him of lilacs, which seems strange. 

Unable to stand it any longer, he moves his knee, and her hand slips away. She tucks it neatly back into the folds of her skirt. She doesn’t look hurt. She’s probably used to it. 

He fumbles for another cigarette and lights it himself this time. She just watches him, and he can see the glow of the flame in her large blue eyes. 

“If I’m the worst person you know,” Hans says, “that’s not good... But I’ll help you keep it that way.” A conman can always spot another con, after all. And the Arendelle court is full of them. 

He tosses the match onto the dungeon floor and they both watch the flame whisper away into smoke. 

“Thank you,” Elsa says. 

“Anything for you,” Hans says. 

He means it as flippant, he’s said it a thousand times to ladies at court, but it comes out wrong and he realizes that it’s actually true now. He’s just agreed to be her guard dog and whatever else she wants. 

It’s a step up from what he was at home. The thought doesn’t improve his mood and he keeps smoking a long time after Elsa leaves.


End file.
